In the previous weekend, when I was browsing some media content on the internet, I stumbled into a website of music videos of the nominees for the Grammy Awards of 2007. As was to be expected, it contained a bunch of mostly forgettable stuff that can be almost all be classified into one of two piles, as usual:
- pop and R&B, like Britney Spears and Beyonce
- rock, like Green Day
But occasionally, there's something in there that is different. And this is where
Imogen Heap fits into, with the song "Goodnight and Go".
It looks like I just might have been to be the last person in the world to have heard of her, as some tracks of hers have already been listened to over 5 million times on
MySpace. Wow.
So, what's it all about, then? Her compositions are not very special, just the plain, optimistic, electronic pop songs. She does have a beautiful voice, as can often be heard among Celtic folk singers, like Enya and Clannad.
Yet she has no fear of experimentation, she often lets her voice skip between vocal chords, just for the weird effect, and she has put electronic effects quite prominent on the foreground, which is quite uncommon for a woman. For example, "Hide and Seek" is just her voice and a vocoder.
I probably must have annoyed my housemates that weekend, as I'm guessing I must have played the few songs I found on internet for a total of about 40 times all.
I have also had a few of her songs kept stuck in my head all working day for 4 days, the following week. So yeah, she has made an impression.
I've been to every larger record shop here in town, and none of them had anything by her in stock. No surprise there, I suppose?
Frou Frou
fireartist on 2007-04-05T08:18:46
She's also the singer in Frou Frou. I have their album Details, and would definitely recommend it.
I first heard her singing Holding Out For A Hero - I think it was during the end credits of Shrek 2 - and thought it was so funky I had to hear more.
Additions
bart on 2007-04-05T21:03:55
- You can listen to the whole second album, "Speak For Yourself", on her website.
- It's for sale on Amazon.com, cheap, but it includes the bloody Sony rootkit. So I'm not buying that, not even for $8. And to say that originally, it came out on an small independent label.
It's also available as import, without the rootkit, for $50. Much better... but expensive.
- I found it quite amusing that all of the reviewers seem to have a different favourite track. But at least, most people seem to agree, that every song on it is good. And each song is also very different from the rest.
